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What's On

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Exhibitions

The major dynastic, political and cultural changes that occurred in England under the Tudors and Stuarts are traced in this exhibition. The money and medals of this 250-year period provide a fascinating insight into broader developments in artistic expression, monarchy, nationhood, and trade in a rapidly expanding world.

This exhibition is the first of two successive selections of works on paper to celebrate the outstanding generosity of benefactors and donors who have helped to enrich the collections. It will also highlight a number of exceptional works bought with funds raised or donated by individuals, charities, and other supporters.

To complement the major show on James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), the Print Room is holding an exhibition of the artist’s etchings, drypoints and lithographs from the Fitzwilliam’s collection, focussing on people.

Showcasing rare and exquisitely decorated fans from the collection of the Hon. Christopher Lennox Boyd, allocated to the Museum by H.M. Government in lieu of inheritance tax in 2015, this display reveals the techniques behind the making, investigation and conservation of fans.

***** The Observer

'Beggarstaffs' was the pseudonym used by the British artists William Nicholson and James Pryde for their collaborative partnership in the design of posters and other graphic work in the 1890s. This groundbreaking exhibition of collaborative graphics and their later individual works as painters have never before been shown together.

07/05/2019 to 04/08/2019

Free

Lunchtime Concerts

Din Ghani (baroque guitar and lute) and Fernanda Sánchez Rojo (soprano) mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of José Marín with a performance of 17th century Spanish songs, some from a manuscript within the Fitzwilliam’s collection.

Over the past fifty years, Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi have built up a remarkable collection of paintings, furniture, sculpture, glass and ceramics, a number of which can be seen on loan to us throughout the galleries of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The 1920s was a time of unprecedented change, after the trauma of the First World War. In America and Western Europe there was great prosperity and artistic innovation, with the new Art Deco style. At the same time there was economic and political crisis in Germany and Central Europe. In Russia the new dawn of Revolution led to Stalin’s terror. All of this can be seen in coins, medals and banknotes of the 1920s.

The Salisbury family, based locally in Cambridge, have kindly lent part of their studio ceramics collection to the Museum. This collection, formed over many years, includes pieces by some of the finest artists to work in clay from the mid-20th century onwards. These include Austrian and German emigrés Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Ruth Duckworth, and contemporary artist Jennifer Lee, winner of the Loewe Craft Prize 2018.

A single display case containing a small selection of items found by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) at the North West Cambridge site, now renamed Eddington. The display includes the single most important find to date, a tightly rolled 12-13th century pewter or lead seal, which when unravelled revealed a king with a fleur de lis-topped sceptre.

A selection of the Museum’s Isaac Oliver miniatures (c.1565-1617) have been chosen to showcase some of the recent discoveries made about his work. The miniatures can be seen in a special display in the Rothschild Gallery of Medieval & Renaissance Art (Gallery 32), where they are shown alongside other 16th- and 17th-century miniatures, including examples by Nicholas Hilliard.

05/02/2019 to 18/08/2019

Free

Tour

CANCELLED
In the light of the developing situation with the spread of COVID-19 we have taken the decision to cancel this event. This is not a decision we have taken lightly but our priorities have to be the welfare of our visitors, our staff and their loved ones.